


An Epilogue

by Perpetual Motion (perpetfic)



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, Post-Movie, yet another not actually dead story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 09:06:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11506167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perpetfic/pseuds/Perpetual%20Motion
Summary: Look, sometimes you gotta write another one.





	An Epilogue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [infiniteeight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/infiniteeight/gifts).



"Barton," Nick says as the Avengers start to leave the debrief after the Battle of New York, "A moment."

_Go fuck yourself_ , Clint thinks but holds himself still behind his chair. Natasha, who had been seated three down from him during the debrief, is waiting as well. The fact that Nick doesn't dismiss her sends a shiver through Clint. "What?" he asks, and he doesn't care that it comes out hard. Coulson's dead. Fuck whatever this is.

Nick looks past Clint's shoulder and only settles into a look of resolve once the door clicks shut behind Banner. "Level 9, Room 4," he says.

Clint gives Nick a hard look. "What?"

"I know I didn't stutter," Nick replies. "Romanov," he says to Natasha, "let's get a drink."

"You're buying several," she replies, and Nick agrees with a lazy wave of his hand as they leave.

Clint stands behind his chair for a few more moments. Level 9 is a place where a lot of different shit happens. It doesn't mean anything.

It doesn't mean Phil.

Clint leaves the meeting room and walks to the elevator. He thinks about those blood-stained vintage trading cards. He thinks about how perfectly that blood was spattered. Enough blood to invoke loyalty, but not so much it would actually obscure the face on the cards. Clint's only worked with Steve Rogers for this one mission, but Clint is already certain he's not so far up his own ass he'd help plant such an idea.

But Nick. Clint watches the floor number tick from two to three to four and up. Nick _absolutely_ is so far up his own ass that he knows when to guilt a fucking icon of American thought. And how that will affect a survivor's guilt playboy. And a survivor's guilt scientist. And a guy who just wants to make Earth safe because he likes it. He doesn't kid himself about Natasha being guilted by a goddamn thing. That's not how she works.

The elevator opens on Level 9. Clints walks out of the elevator and to Room 4. Nick doesn't always speak straight, but he doesn't speak in riddles. Whatever's here, it's worth Clint's time. He has a silent hope for what it is, but he's not naive. He may have run away to the circus, but life wasn't any easier there than before. He expects to be wrong because that's how the averages have worked.

Room 4 has green light light above it. Whoever's in there is stable and doesn't need extra work unless they push a button. Clint shoves the door open with as much force as he can. Better to face it full on than hope too much, he thinks.

Phil sits in a hospital bed, upright because they have controls for that. He's working stitches on a crochet hook and looks very determined.

Clint thinks he is either going to vomit or pass out. "Phil?" he mumbles, so quietly he doesn't think Phil can hear him, but Phil looks over and beams.

"There you are," Phil says, like Clint's walked into their apartment after any boring day. He holds up the hook and yarn. "I can't remember how to basketweave."

Clint wants to tease him, but he can't. He _can't_. Phil is here. Alive. Crocheting like Clint taught him after he was put on rest after a bruise to his solar plexus three years ago. Clint learned from Lydia the Tattooed Lady when Trickshot yanked his arm so hard he couldn't shoot for a week when he was seventeen. 

"You're hopeless," Clint murmurs. He kisses Phil as hard as he dares given the circumstances--the bandage on his chest tells Clint not to dare too much--and takes the yarn and hook. 

"Show me again," Phil says, leaning towards Clint but careful of his IV.

"Sure," Clint replies, and he shows Phil like he did three years ago, going slow and careful so Phil can pick it up. "I thought you were dead," Clint says as he passes the project to Phil.

Phil completes three repeats of the basketweave stitch. "Not while you're still here," he says and turns for the kiss he knows is coming.

**Author's Note:**

> Look, sometimes you gotta write another one.


End file.
